1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a probe device provided with an improved control system and suitable for measuring matters such as semiconductor wafers and more particularly, it relates to a probe device wherein loader and measuring sections have their respective slave CPUs and these slave CPUs are connected to each other through a master CPU and controlled by the master CPU.
2. Description of the Related Art
As the result of technological innovation, various kinds of semiconductor devices such as IC and LSI have been manufactured these days at factories. Various lines for manufacturing memory ICs, gate arrays and the like are usually arranged in each of clean rooms at these factories, depending upon what kinds of devices to be prepared, and each line is formed by those devices and apparatuses which can meet purposes of the line.
The probe device is also located to form a line in the clean room. The probe device usually has loader and measuring sections. The loader section has a system for housing a plurality of objects to be measured and a system for supplying the object to the measuring section. The measuring section has a system for supporting the object and a system for measuring it.
The amount of products prepared on the manufacturing line frequently and greatly changes depending upon needs created. As the amount of products changes like this, therefore, it is necessary to change the processing capacity of the probe device. In the case of the conventional probe device, however, the loader and measuring sections were paired. When such a kind of wafers as needed to be quickly processed were manufactured, therefore, they could not be processed quickly or it needed many hands to quickly process them. Providing that a cassette in which 25 sheets of wafers are housed is discharged from the manufacturing line, for example, the wafers will not be delivered to a next process until they are measured one by one from first to 25th sheet thereof by one probe device. Alternately, 25 sheets of wafers are manually picked up from the cassette and allotted to plural probe devices to be measured. However, this was not an automatic process and needed a great many hands.
When plural probe devices are arranged in the clean room to process a great many objects, various kinds of problems are caused. Because the clean room makes it difficult to spread its floor area and change its shape as its building and maintenance cost is so high.
In order to eliminate the above-mentioned drawbacks, Japanese Utility Model Disclosure (KOKAI) No. 60-41045 discloses a probe device comprising a measuring section and loader sections located on four sides of the measuring unit, said loader unit having wafers supply and housing systems. Japanese Patent Disclosure (KOKAI) No. 61-168236 discloses a probe device comprising a loader section and plural measuring sections located relative to the loader section.
Both devices disclosed by these references can contribute surely in an aspect to making the conventional probe devices more efficient and reducing the space occupied by the probe device. In the case of these two probe devices disclosed, however, they become large in size and their process patterns become fixed. When the processing capacity of the prove device is frequently asked to change in the clean room, when the layout of the lines is changed, and when probe devices must be exchanged between clean rooms or between factories to meet the change of the layout, therefore, the two probe devices disclosed causes more kinds of problems as compared with the conventional probe devices comprising one loader unit and one measuring unit.